It's midwinter and, that's right, I'm blogging about the beach. I'm a Southern Californian living in NYC, taking Vitamin D supplements like mad to keep my sunless days in tune with my body that is dependent on the great star. It's about time I pay tribute to the sun and the sand that are a part of me.
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| Photo that I took at Coronado of my best friend's mom's umbrella |
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| A nice, San Diego January activity - we ice skate on the beach. It was so hot that day, there was an inch of water on the ice from it melting. |
On Tuesday morning the weather began to take an unseasonably warm turn. The window was open in the office, and while I was researching Women's Groups in far off distant countries, the smell of summer mornings drifted in on the breeze. It took me back to the summers of 2011, 2010, and 2009, summers filled with iced coffees and mornings on the beach. Actually, in the summer of 2009 I was sipping energy drinks to get my caffeine (yes, that has come to an end).
During those summers listed, I spent so much time sunning by the waters of the Pacific. With Point Loma and the Coronado Islands as my backdrop, I laughed, ate, swam and tanned with my best friend and her sister. We are Coronado girls, though we all grew up closer to Mission Beach, PB, and OB (that's Pacific Beach and Ocean Beach to any of you non-San Diegans.) But Coronado offered something that the other beaches did not. Maybe it was the awe of driving over the big, blue bridge. Maybe it was the wild dolphins, or maybe it was the historical hotel where our very own ghost, Kate Morgan, keeps watch over us....Nah, the whole thing is pretty spectacular. It's no joke or exaggeration that Coronado is the number 1 beach in the United States. Take that,
Hawaii. (Yes, I've sited a reference and inserted a hyperlink in Hawaii.)
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| The Hotel Del Coronado |
I've many a memory on that white shore - from Victoria, Amy, and Deana trying to convince me that I wanted to be buried in the sand, to teaching my niece and nephew how to boogie board. It's one of my favorite places back home. It's a place of peace. I was not much of a "beach" person when I lived in San Diego; the ocean used to scare me, but now I can't get enough of it. The smell of the salt on the air, the sight of Caspian terns floating on the breeze, and, because it's Coronado, seeing the underbelly of jets as they fly a couple of dozen feet right over head - you can't get that anywhere else. Being there with my best friend, even if seagulls sabotaged our closed bags of chips, are some of the best memories that I have.
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| My best friend buried. (After I refused to be, she filled the void) |
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| One of the many jets that flew overhead |
One thing to know about my best friend and me - if we had lived life in the Victorian Era, we would have been regarded as trend-setters and die hard rebels. Our eccentric outbursts of fun are exactly that and usually Victorian-centric. The Hotel Del Coronado (henceforth to be referred as The Del) was built during the nineteenth century and I'm fairly sure that one of the oldest still-in-use elevators on the West Coast is within its halls. It has a wonderful, Southern-Victorian feel to it and I've never felt more "at-home" at a hotel than I do at the Del. One fine day, my best friend and I decided that it was in our best interest to dress from the era and go hang out at the Dell like we owned the place. So we did to the best of our abilities and being that we were 19 and had at our disposal costumes, it was a good time. People looked at us, but being that we matched the hotel's era, they mostly assumed that we worked there, which was fine. It struck me as something quite hilarious that no one outright asked us what we were doing dressed like we were out for a stroll from the 1800s. Maybe they had all been to Old Town where people dressed from the early nineteenth century walk about. Compared to that group, we were modern.
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| A dusty road in Old Town |
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| My best friend's sister, my best friend, and me at a candy shop in Coronado. Yes, we are wearing mustaches. |
Dressing like a lady from a different century and wearing stick-on mustaches are some of the more intense shenanigans in which I have had a part, but roaming hotels for the heck of it is a game I like to play. It's fun to see what hotels you can roam, for usually you get to see pretty interesting things, particularly when the hotel that you are wandering is haunted. Yes, the Del is haunted. I mentioned Ms. Morgan earlier in this post, but allow me to give you a more proper introduction to my favorite spirit.
In the 1800s, when orange trees lined Orange Avenue on Coronado, there was a young woman named Kate Morgan. Kate used to travel with her husband all over the south-west. They were a married pair of con-men and thieves. While the husband would play a round of cards, Kate would distract the other players, conning or thieving them as she pleased. Their craft was very lucrative and the thrill of their sport was something that they both enjoyed. One day, while in San Diego, Kate told her husband that she was pregnant. Her having the child would mean that their lifestyles would have to change dramatically, even if only for a short time. The husband was furious, but he told Kate to stay at the Del and give him a week to blow off steam. He boarded a train and headed north. So at the Del Kate stayed. While the breeze from the west surely helped to clear her head and helped her to find peace, soon enough she began to realize that he was not coming back. He abandoned her. The torment of losing her love was too much for Kate to bear. With the sun setting, the reflection of its golden lights dancing off the waters and onto the western face of the red and white hotel, Kate took her life. At the Del, Kate will always stay. But, the eternal guest of the hotel is not one who spends her days in torment. She spends her time taking care of the guests, particularly of young couples. There are several stories of interactions with Kate, I even have one myself.
My friends Andrew, Victoria, and I were wandering around the basement of the hotel (how we got there...) and we were standing in a corridor, none of us touching anything or any walls, by two closed doors. We were trying to decide where to go next, when the doors opened. There was no one on the other side. The doors did have handicap assistance button, but none of us were anywhere near it. Being that we were calm and cool customers, we thanked Kate for opening the door for us and helping us to decide which way to go. There are other reports of Kate covering people with blankets during the night if they were cold, or likewise of turning off lights if no one is in the restroom, while the tenants are in their rooms. (She's a true Californian, alright). But that's our hotel spirit. I'm not the first one to talk about Kate, and nor am I the only one who thinks she is a pretty interesting entity. The hotel itself has a coffee drink named after her along with a shop named "Kate's", presumably in memory of her.
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| Me at Coronado in 2010. Pretty sure that this was the middle of winter. |
That's my story for this day. Tune-in next week, to read about the exciting adventures of Deana, Victoria and me out in the woods in a flash-storm with only a van as our source of shelter. (And only because we failed miserably with the tent.)
Your humble writer,
S. Faxon
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